How good is free, apparently it's not that bad as it turns out. This week for my application review I decided to check out ZOHO. While I've used a few programs previous to Microsoft Word, I am a true dyed-in-the-wool fan of Word. I have to say that this is mainly because of two reasons:
- one, because it seems to be what everybody uses
- because it is what I've always used
Luckily I bought a copy of the Office for Students and Educators when I was in college for a slight discount and have been using it ever since, but come on, it's still expensive. After looking at what is available in ZOHO, I have to admit I am impressed. First, there are so many programs available to use. My Office suite includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access. Just looking at what is available in ZOHO I find 15 possible formats to use including all of the programs that I have available to me in Microsoft; I also see a couple of things that aren't. If I want a website creater I have to but that seperately with Microsoft, I also would have to go outside of Microsoft to get a Wiki creater.
With what I saw while browsing throught the program, I'd be willing to try this ZOHO suite out before dropping a couple hundred bucks on another Microsoft suite. I'd definately let my students try it out, It would take care of the problems of "I forgot it at home!" as they could simply log in and export it to their school account.
For the image editing program, I looked at FotoFlexer. I have Adobe Photoshop on my computer and find that while I would love to be able to use all of the different parts of it, at my level of photography, I wouldn't buy it for myself (it was a gift...before I found out that you can get most of the tools free online from Adobe). Foto Flexer is a great tool, especially for students as it allows you to get photos from your facebook or myspace accounts, edit them and drop them back in. It has more tools that I thought would be available for free, most of which are the ones that I use from my expensive program. Do I like having the ability to "remaster" my pictures - yes, do I have the ability at this time...not without the instruction manual that I had to buy from the bookstore. This program allows you to crop, change the lighting, shutter time, color, etc., but unless you're a photographer most people just choose the "auto fix" button and move on.
The really cool thing about this program that works with school age children is the ability to alter your photos. I had a great time with my 2 1/2 year old son editing a picture of him by adding sparkle letters, spinning his picture, making him look like he was standing in front of a fun-house mirror...all of the stuff that you see students do if you've ever watched them edit their pictures for fun. Again, if you're a professional photographer, this program is probably not for you, but if you want to crop your pictures, get the red-eye out, and have some fun with your friend's pictures, this is a great investment.
Oh yeah, did I mention that I'm typing this on the ZOHO writer program and am posting it to my blog with a touch of a button...
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